“Imagine an Aotearoa where everyone can get to where they’re going safely. Where it’s safe to drive to work and home again or visit whānau and friends. Where it’s safe to ride bikes and let tamariki walk to school. Where transport improves our health and wellbeing, creating live-able places for our communities.”
Speed and Infrastructure, Waka Kotahi
We believe strongly in the beautiful vision of a Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland that is people-friendly, accessible, and safe. When tamariki (children) are laughing as they walk and cycle to kura (school) on the 30km/hr streets, it can almost feel real. And, with the approval of Katoa Ka Ora, Auckland’s Speed Management Plan, committing to more safety for local kura, marae, and residential streets, for a moment it really felt like this vision could soon be our reality.
But this wonderful progress towards people-friendly streets has been unceremoniously stalled by Transport Minister Simeon Brown’s proposed new “Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits Rule 2024” (referred to as “draft Speed Rule” for short). The speed rule seeks to impose blanket speed limit increases on our communities, and effectively bans 30km/hr speed limits, making streets near schools more dangerous for our tamariki – and anyone else traveling along them. It includes no room for consideration of local contexts, levels of community support, or adverse effects on safety.
Around 55 more Aucklanders will be killed and seriously injured on the road over the next two years if the Speed Rule goes ahead. This is despite the overwhelming evidence that deaths and serious injuries are highly expensive for our economy. And despite 7 of 10 New Zealanders being supportive of lowering speeds around schools to increase road safety.
It’s important the Central Government hears from all of us how harmful their proposal will be, and how much we love our 30km/hr streets. Check out our quickfire guide for more information and have your say here.
What we’ve been up to….
- Posted a Quickfire guide including links to other organisations’ submission guides
- Posted this lovely blog piece about how kids want to travel
- Shared this media release response and position statement
- Arranged this 1News interview which aired on TV 1 news at 6 on Friday 28 June
- Appeared in this Hibiscus Coast article
- Held a small event “Mourning the Future Fallen” (at the same time as other cycling advocates in Pōneke Wellington) and gave out fliers to curious passers-by. Media release here.
- Presented to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee urging their opposition to the Speed Rule (at 19.46 in this video). The Council voted in favour of their submission being largely in opposition to the Speed Rule.
- Shared this video before presenting to the T&I committee to highlight our advocacy about the Speed Rule
- Posted this article about the presentations and Council’s decision.
- Sent the Auckland Councillors an email to thank them for standing up for safety and accessibility, including a link to the above article for their interest
- Shared all these articles to our audience of 24,000, including our highly engaged newsletter subscribers
- Shared about the Speed Rule with our community of Bike Burbs, who have a total social media membership of 19,000
- Printed and distributed 180 fliers encouraging people to have their say
- Connected with other advocacy organisations and community groups to encourage their advocacy on the Speed Rule as well.
